Vice Admiral Matthew Nathan Visits Denver For Navy Outreach Program

DENVER (CBS4) - The surgeon general of the Navy, Vice Admiral Matthew Nathan, visited Denver this week as part of the military branch's outreach program.

The "Navy 50-50 Program" includes two to three days of meetings with corporate executives, civic leaders, government officials, university administrators and nonprofit leaders.

The vice admiral also stopped by CBS4 Morning News to talk with Brooke Wagner and Alan Gionet. He said this is chance to visit Colorado for a couple of reasons.

"One is to say thank you for the sons and daughters from this area who are in the Navy and the Marine Corps and are serving their country all over the world," Nathan said. "The other is to give America a chance to understand what the Navy does and what our capabilities are and what the bang for the buck is."

Nathan says he has a great job.

"The neat thing about Navy medicine specifically is the range and capabilities of things we do," he said. "We have Navy corpsmen who are assigned to the Marine Corps who as we speak are fighting the fight in Afghanistan.

You can cross the spectrum to our humanitarian and disaster relief assistance that is on our hospital ships that are out and about participating with other countries, working for them."

You can go to our research facilities which are located through Egypt, South American, Thailand and Vietnam. We have researchers doing that. So we're all over the board."

Nathan also toured the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora where a new Veterans Administration's hospital is being built. He said he believes the transition from military medical care back to community care is getting stronger.

"I think this whole community and the health systems are starting to become poised to take care of veterans, of returning wounded warriors, of supporting the families.

We're very excited to see what kind of innovations and ideas spring forward as we participate and partner with the VA and local hospitals."